The Russian bank has lost $1.2 billion of FX deposits in August amid sanction fears. Sberbank assured its clients it controls the situation.

Russians rushed to withdraw $1.2 billion from Sberbank’s foreign currency deposits in August, Bloomberg reported citing data from Bank of Russia and research firm Frank RG. The publication indicates that since the beginning of the year, Sberbank’s foreign currency accounts have fallen by 10%, which is more than the average for the sector.

Bloomberg explained the outflow by people’s fears that new sanctions on state banks might be introduced. The situation was aggravated by rumors that foreign currency deposits might be converted into rubles.

Sberbank assured that it was managing the balance sheet dynamically and maintaining a diversified structure of liabilities. “The outflows or inflows of $1 billion with the FX part of the balance of $94-95 billion or more should be seen as a result of managed evolution of the balance sheet," the bank said in a statement.

In early August, Sberbank Deputy Chairman of the Board, Alexander Morozov, said that he did not see any "unusual movements" of client funds. According to him, the bank's customers exchanged rubles into dollars in the amount of up to $20 million a day. In addition, over the first week of August, Sberbank had an inflow of client funds of more than 40 billion rubles. "Typical seasonal fluctuations," Morozov added.

In late August, Sberbank raised interest rates on ruble deposits for the first time since 2014, while the rates on foreign currency deposits remained at the same level.